I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing. – Preludes, T.S. Eliot
Sherbet Green presents Preludes, the first solo show from artist Marieke Bernard-Berkel. As in Eliot’s preludes, the paintings presented here, acid lined, and bulbous from the layered paintwork, finger at the edges of a fully-fledged realisation – a story that has not reached its arch. From photographs, Bernard-Berkel renders bucolic countryside scenes, dioramic panoramas in luminescent tones. Distorted into a toxic muddiness that itself gives way to new imaginings, the works become lurid, sublime warnings.
Marieke Bernard-Berkel (b. 1988) is a French-German artist living and working between London and Paris. She received her MA Fine Art from Beaux Arts Paris in 2013. Recent group shows include at Radicants, Paris (forthcoming; September 2022), Paradise Row, London (2022) and PUBLIC Gallery (2022).
